


Decisions

by imsfire



Series: Family Holiday [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cassian has a question, Decisions to make, F/M, Jyn has some news, K-2SO is mentioned but not present, proposal, rebelcaptain fan week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 20:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10647597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: It would be so terribly easy just to turn in his arms now, lift her mouth to his, hold him and forget what she has to say,  forget the decision they have to take...





	Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the rebelcaptain appreciation week on therebelcaptainnetwork on tumblr, for the final day's writing prompt, "Future".

“Do you have a minute?” she asks, standing at the balcony window of their hotel room, looking out at the lake in the evening light.  Her hand reaches for the crystal pendant at her breast for the eternal reassurance that offers; but it’s easier than she’d feared to say those first words, because she’s not looking his way.  She hears his footsteps as he comes up behind her.

“I have...” Cassian snakes his arms round her waist and rocks her back against his body. 

It feels good, and Jyn settles into the warmth of him.  “Remember the first time you did that? - when I went into attack mode?  I’d never had anyone grab at me from the rear who wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“You nearly broke my jaw.  Chirrut said he could feel the bruise in the Force, it was so big.”

“And you forgave me.”

His breath on the side of her neck, a fluttering heat as he chuckles noiselessly.  “You know what a weakness I have for your fighting skills.”  He kisses the skin under her ear. 

It would be so terribly easy just to turn in his arms now, lift her mouth to his, hold him and forget what she has to say,  forget the decision they have to take.  His lips are so gentle, and so irresistible.   But she makes herself hold still, and as if sensing that she isn’t going to turn and devour him, he draws back and stands just holding her again, resting his cheek on her hair. 

“Actually, there’s something I wanted to ask you,” he says, and Jyn startles in his arms, because hearing your own unuttered words in someone else’s voice is a slightly surreal experience, and even people as deeply attuned as they have become over the years don’t usually speak one another’s thoughts randomly like that.  Is Cassian becoming Force-sensitive from long association with Chirrut and Baze?

“Uh – okay...”

“Will you marry me?”

“Oh!  Oh –“ and that wasn’t what she expected, though she cannot say what was; her brain is short-circuiting, thoughts and words scrambled like play-tiles. “Yes.”  At least she’s managed to get that out; one word shouldn’t be that hard. “Yes, yes, yes of course I will.  Oh, what – what the –“ it’s the equivalent of that faint sub-articulate whizzing noise K-2 utters sometimes when he’s really put out by human illogicality.  Find words, real joined-up words, come on… “Am I dreaming or did you just propose?”

“I did.  Did you just say yes?”

“I did.  I do.  I will – you – good grief, oh my dear…”

He turns her now, keeping her within the circle of his arms; he looks into her eyes and his smile is shy and happy and sad all at once.  “Jyn, I know the war’s not over yet, I know this might seem premature, but ever since Endor I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the future.  I – I’ve realised I never used to believe in it.  Not for me.  For everyone else, I hoped, if people like me did our jobs right; for the galaxy as a whole; but not for me.  But then I met you, and I wanted it; I wanted to live, to see a life with alternatives and paths stretching ahead and chances to do other things besides fight and kill and go undercover and kill again.  I wanted a future, things to hope for, decisions to make, all of it, even problems and arguments and – just, all kinds of shit, even, because that’s part of real life and so having it means you’re really living, and - am I making sense?”

“Yes.”  It’s hard to say more, her throat has gone tight.  Despite that final hasty query, this sounds rehearsed, and Cassian isn’t much given to making speeches.  She’s only known him do it once before.

“I don’t know how to live that life,” Cassian says.  “Life that’s not in a war, I mean.  And that scares me.  I’ve never been anything but – _this_ – since I was a child.  It may be hard, I may not be any good at it.  I don’t know who I am if I’m not a soldier.  But I want to try, I want to learn how.  And I know this one thing; whether I’m any good at living or I have to fight through every day, whatever comes, I want it to be with you, Jyn.  If you’ll have me.”

“Yes.  Yes, Force alive, yes!” 

She pulls him close and stretches up till her chin is just beneath his shoulder; he grips her and they stand tight-pressed together, touching as they touched that first time, one of his hands in the small of her back and one at the back of her neck, bunching in her shirt, clinging to her as she clings. 

She says the words that this particular, tight, memory-packed embrace always means, the words they couldn’t say the first time. “I love you.  I love you so much.”

A shiver goes through him before he loosens his hold on her and whispers “And I love you, Jyn.”  He’s blinking and his eyes shine for a second; but he grins sideways and adds “I have something for you, let me go get it.”

Something turns out to be a pair of rings, loops of knotted silver wire each set with a tiny chip of crystal.  Jyn swears.  “Is that kyber?”

He nods.  “Do you want to put one on?  I don’t know if it’s a custom you like or not; my parents always wore theirs, matching rings for their engagement and their marriage, and I just – when I saw these in that market yesterday I thought they were perfect—“

“They are.  And – Cassian – everything you said, about being unsure of the future, not knowing how you’ll deal with a life without war in it – it’s all true for me, too, you must know that.  The idea we might soon win is wonderful, it’s like a miracle, but I have no idea how to do anything except be a fighter.  I’m going to need to work out who Jyn is, without that.  Thank you for – for still wanting to stay with me.” 

All the years since Scarif.  It hasn’t always been easy.  They’ve quarrelled and cried, and held one another through nights of love and nights of bad dreams, they’ve been afraid and sick, have come back for one another and fought through to one another and sparred and spat and been scared, and wanted to leave and known they would always stay; they’ve held together and held to the cause, and soldiered on.  And now –

She takes the larger band and pushes it quickly onto his ring finger; allows her own hand to be lifted and the second ring to be placed in position; and they’re engaged.

“Was there something you wanted to ask me?” he says.  “You asked if I had a minute…”

Jyn looks down at her ring, up into his eyes.  Her heart is beating a little fast.  “You remember when I got that implant?”

“That - ? – oh, yes…”

“Well, it was due to run out next month.  So before this trip I went along to get it replaced.  I figured better to play it safe, after all there was a good chance we were going to have a lot of sex if we did get shunted off on shore leave!  But it turns out apparently I have a fast metabolism.  They did a blood test and said they wouldn’t give me a new one because I’m already pregnant.”  There, it’s out in the open now.  Odd to think that most people daydream of the day they will get engaged, the day they’ll tell their partner this news; daydream and plan, try to make it a day to remember.  And here they are just standing at a window.  “If this had been just six months ago I would have been saying to you _I know what we need to do, I wish things had been different but we need to make a sensible decision_ …  But now – Cassian, I would have preferred to plan a family – if – if you want to start one, that is.  But since this has already happened – will you help me decide what to do?”

“You’re pregnant?” For a moment he’s worryingly impassive, with shock or disbelief; then a faint smile lifts the corners of his mouth.  “Are you sure?”

“Doc says I’m three months gone.”

“Force alive, Jyn.  A baby.  Do you want to do this?”

“Do you?”

“I want a family.  I know that.  Is this too soon?  In the end it’s not my decision; but I do want a family with you.  If that’s possible, then that’s the best news.  Even if this isn’t the right time.”

“It’s not a wrong time, just not _planned_.”  He’s waiting; but that hesitant, hopeful smile tells her what she needed to know.  They both want to take the risk.  “I want to have this baby,” she tells him.  “Now there’s a real chance of a future for them.”

“Okay.  Okay…  Sweet life.  Sweet life!  We’re going to be parents…”

They stand holding one another in the gathering dusk.

“So – three months gone, did you say?  Does that mean – was it that mission on Ah’mina?  When it was so hot, and the ‘fresher broke?”

“And we both got so filthy?  Yes, I think so.  The timings fit.  Dirty Daddy Cassian.”

His laugh as always is the smallest of sounds, a faint huff, bare movement of breath.

“I never ever thought I’d be a mother,” Jyn admits after another long silence.  “I never thought I’d even live to be twenty-five.  What is the world going to be like, when the war ends?  What are we going to do? – where will we live, what will we live on?  It’s terrifying…”

“Well, we have six months to figure it out.  Some of it, at least.  And plan a wedding.  We’ve done worse, and with a lot less time.”

There’s another pause before she says “So, who’s going to have the privilege of giving K the news?  Or should we toss for it?”

And, rare and sweet,  Cassian laughs out loud.

**Author's Note:**

> Rather a reflective mood for a proposal, I know...


End file.
